5G

AT&T has been vague on its 5G plans, saying only that a dozen cities will have 5G of some sort by the end of the year. Today, AT&T's plans are slightly less vague. We know three of those dozen 5G markets: Dallas, Waco, and Atlanta.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X24 LTE modem is the fastest, most advanced 4G chip on the planet. Or, at least, Qualcomm hopes it will be by the time it's in your next smartphone.

Based on a 7nm fabrication process (yes, seven nanometers), the X24 LTE modem is the world's first Category 20 LTE modem and supports an absolutely bonkers 2Gbps max download speed by aggregating up to seven carrier bands. It also uses advanced massive MIMO and Licensed Assisted Access tech to help achieve these figures. Aside from being the first commercial product announced to use a 7nm fab, the small process size should also make it Qualcomm's - and thus, quite likely the world's - most efficient LTE modem ever.

At the company's "5G Day" event in San Diego yesterday, Qualcomm announced that it had secured 18 OEM partners to build 5G devices using its new X50 5G modem in 2019. Notable among them are handset makers Nokia (HMD), Sony, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, HTC, LG, ASUS, and ZTE. Conspicuously absent at the time of this writing is Samsung, though the two companies did just announce a long-term cross-licensing agreement, so you'd have to think they were on track to build a phone with this new modem, too.

Other companies in the list can be found in the press release below, though most of the others are in the component or supply chain side of the business.

Billions of devices, from phones and tablets to self-driving cars and connected dishwashers, are thirstily awaiting the rise of 5G wireless connectivity, and the big wireless carriers are scrambling to bring these powerful new networks to market. According to documents obtained by Axios, however, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile might be nudged out of the race to 5G—not by an industry competitor, but by the U.S. government.

This is Sprint's Magic Box, the world's first all-wireless small cell, which promises to improve LTE data coverage and download speeds indoors. The plug-and-play unit is aimed at both small businesses and regular customers and offered at no extra cost, with availability subject to qualifying locations.

Everyone's favorite performance-artist-CEO has put up another amazing video about his company's plans for 5G. We announced T-Mobile's recent purchase of whole swaths of the 600MHz spectrum, and today CEO John Legere announced in one of his regular videos exactly how it plans on using it. Some of it will be going to expand current 4G LTE capacity and penetration, but a portion is to be set aside for their future 5G implementation.

AT&T announced today that they're going to acquire Straight Path Communications, a holder of a number of millimeter wave spectrum licenses in the US for $1.6 billion. This brings them one step closer to realizing their AirGig plans for last-mile data infrastructure.

5G. You're aware of it, probably. You've at least likely whizzed past it unblinkingly in a press release or heard and ignored it in a sound byte from a CEO or analyst, as 5G is increasingly a very hot topic in the biz.

But wait, aren't we just kind of now starting to get 4G everywhere? Isn't it too early to be talking about the next generation of wireless technology? Actually: yes. It kind of is. And that's part of what this piece is about - providing a bit of a reality check on 5G, what it is, what it means for you (or doesn't), and when you can expect it.